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Correa Campaign Criticizes Bao Nguyen’s Record on GG School Board and in City Hall

by • October 28, 2016

Bao Nguyen (second from left) urges his Garden Grove Unified School District Colleagues to withdraw the district’s participation in the 2013 Tet Parade if the decision to exclude the LGBT coalition is not reversed. (Photo: Jeff Le Tourneau)

This press release came in from the Lou Correa for Congress campaign.

Santa Ana, CA– Bao Nguyen is not a true progressive. He has made a career out of promising one thing to voters, but then immediately abandoning his principles the moment it becomes personally or politically expedient to do so. That’s why it is not surprising that he failed the residents of Garden Grove both as their School Board Member and later, as their Mayor.

In the 2012 and 2014 elections, Bao vowed to protect our children’s future and provide teachers with the tools they needed to successfully do their jobs. In reality, he broke this promise and protected neither.

In 2013, in an attempt to fix the $60 million deficit he helped create on the Garden Grove School Board, Bao voted to cut teachers’ hours, increase class sizes and decrease the overall number of teachers on four separate occasions.

Rather than eliminating bureaucratic waste and creating a bright future for our children, Bao voted to renege on his campaign promises and reduce the resources available to our students and teachers. Bao’s less-than-stellar voting record on the Garden Grove School Board proves that he is not in politics to serve his community, but rather to serve himself. He consistently votes to stay in the good graces of his colleagues, even if it means supporting a policy that is not in the best interest of his constituents.

Out of the 944 votes Bao participated in while a member of the Garden Grove School Board, he voted 100%, or 944 out of 944 times, with his peers.

As Garden Grove Mayor, Nguyen continued to prioritize his needs over the needs of local residents. With Garden Grove’s multi-million dollar budget deficit crisis still unresolved, Bao Nguyen opted to give himself a pay raise.

Even worse, while Garden Grove struggled to survive financially, Bao attempted to create a new staff position for a personal assistant, his own personal assistant. This decision was so outrageous that his own colleagues reprimanded him saying, “we are here because we want to volunteer our time – not act as a celebrity that needs an entourage.” Bao has a proven record of prioritizing political gain over doing the right thing.

He clearly wasn’t listening when Senator Sanders said, “What kind of nation are we when we give tax breaks to billionaires, but we don’t take care of the elderly or our children?”

Bao doesn’t stand up for progressive ideals because he cares more about advancing his own career and cushioning his salary, than he does about addressing the needs of community members. Time and time again, Bao has failed to deliver on his campaign promises and jeopardized the well-being of his constituents. Thus, it is safe to assume, that he would do so in Congress as well.

Lou Correa has a terrible voting record, he’s been bad on the environment, healthcare and even educational issues. A vote for Lou Correa would be a gift to Paul Ryan and his agenda.

From Crooks and Liars:

“He also worked with the GOP to restrict women’s access to family planning and abortion services and to push the NRA’s agenda. Planned Parenthood gave him a big fat ZERO rating and labeled him anti-Choice. He’s actively supported loopholes to make sure assault-style military weapons would wind up in California neighborhoods.”

“I bet you could guess he’s also an environmental disaster, right? You’d be guessing right. California’s League of Conservation Voters says he has the worst environmental record of any Democratic elected official in the state. He always sides with special interests to protect corporate polluters, consistently failed to protect the state’s water sources from lead and contamination, and voted against ensuring Californians have a right to clean, safe and affordable water. Year after year the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) gave him the worst rating of any California Democrat.”

Nice recycled talking points from the Dunn campaign. In May, we wrote this:

Lou’s record reflects advances in healthcare for children, mental healthcare services, autism services, and lowering the cost of higher education for all California students. Lou’s been accused of voting against a middle class scholarship bill by various Joe supporters in social media and in blog comments; what these same supporters fail to mention is that there were *two* middle class scholarship bills – the one Lou voted against had a huge carve out that favored Big Tobacco which is why he voted against it. Lou voted for the second, much cleaner, Middle Class Scholarship Bill.

Critics often point to Lou’s vote against single payer healthcare in California, neglecting to mention that was, essentially, no public oversight for this measure and there was another exemption for Big Tobacco to not to pay into the plan. Lou has been a consistent supporter for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) often called “ObamaCare.”

Lou instituted programs such as Operation Kid Prints, that reached out to local schools to provide free finger printing and child safety packet information in case of an emergency for more than 50,000 kids in OC. Lou’s Young Senators Program, adopted by the California Senate Statewide, taught thousands of teenagers, from all walks of life about community service, teamwork, and leadership.

and Lou said this: “I am Pro-Choice and I have always been Pro-Choice. I also support Planned Parenthood and believe in the importance of education birth control, and cancer screenings,” said Lou. “I would not support any attempts in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, as long as they keep providing health education and providing birth control. Beyond women’s healthcare, I believe government has a role to play in protecting women’s rights and expanding equality for women, including on pay equity and paid family leave.”

Then there are his terrible scores from the The California League of Conservation Voters:

CLCV is using the Scorecard results to call on legislators like Senator Lou Correa to improve their performance on environmental legislation in 2011. Senator Correa received a disappointing score of 30% in 2010 after voting “no” on priority environmental bills dealing with renewable energy, oil spill prevention, green jobs training, pesticides, commercial recycling, and a ban on plastic bags.
In addition to his terrible votes, Senator Correa authored SB 1010, which would have granted 125 major projects exemptions from the bedrock law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). If it had passed, the bill would have undermined the ability of communities to participate in important decisions about their own neighborhoods.

On Healthcare:

In 2009 Planned Parenthood gave him a 0 rating and labeled him anti-choice.

Description of Issues Scored
Assembly
Senate Budget Bill:
Family Planning Funding
An anti-choice amendment to the state budget that would prohibit state funding of
family planning service providers.
Assembly Nursing Facilities Bill:
Abortion Funding
Four anti-choice amendments, unrelated to the subject of the bill, that would do the
following: 1) limit state funding for abortion services, 2) ban certain abortion
procedures, 3) require parental consent before a minor can access abortion care, and
4) provide biased information to women before they can access abortion care.
The 2009 Pro-Choice Scorecard is intended to help you hold your
elected officials accountable on the issues that matter to you!

On education:

Correa blamed for defeat of scholarship act

An intense final day of the legislative session concluded last week with the defeat of Assembly Speaker John A. Perez’s Middle Class Scholarship Act, legislation that he had identified as his top priority for the year. When the dust settled, the speaker’s office put out a press release blaming Senate Republicans and Santa Ana Democratic Sen. Lou Correa in particular for the proposal’s failure.

“Today was an opportunity for the State Senate to join the Assembly in approving tax fairness for California businesses and college opportunity for middle class families,” the speaker said in the prepared statement. “Unfortunately, even though most Senate Democrats supported the Middle Class Scholarship Act, we could not reach agreement with Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) or Senate Republicans that would achieve the two-thirds vote necessary.
“It is disturbing that Senator Correa and so many Republicans would refuse to stand up for the middle class and instead continue to support a tax giveaway that favors out-of-state companies over our own.”http://www.ocregister.com/totalbuzz/correa-469500-strong-speaker.html